(Reuters) -Ukraine sent drones towards Moscow for the third consecutive night, disrupting air traffic around the Russian capital, Russian authorities said late on Tuesday.
The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that its air defence units destroyed 57 Ukrainian drones within three hours, starting at 1700 GMT on Monday, including four over the Moscow region and eight over neighbouring regions.
Kyiv has kept up long-range drone strikes on Moscow and other Russian regions in recent months, saying the aim is to hit military and industrial assets, sap Russia’s war economy and show Russians the conflict is no longer distant.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said two of Moscow’s four airports, the Domodedovo airport and the smaller Zhukovsky airport, were briefly closed for safety reasons.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app that emergency services had been sent to the site where a drone bound for Moscow came down.
There were no immediate reports of damage. Russia typically gives limited details about the effects of Ukrainian strikes on its territory unless civilians or civilian infrastructure are hit.
Over the previous two nights, Russia’s units destroyed 35 Ukrainian drones over the Moscow region, the Russian defence ministry said. There was no damage reported.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in MelbourneEditing by Rod Nickel)
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